Icons: An A-Z Guide to the People Who Shaped Our Time

by James Park

Profiles historical and contemporary world leaders, athletes, artists, musicians, scientists, and other famous people

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, History, Biography

469 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

Reviews

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Icons: An A-Z Guide to the People Who Shaped Our Time by James Park (Collier Books 1991) (920.009) is a small encyclopedia of people who have somehow played an important role in the last half of the twentieth century. There are roughly a thousand short biographical entries, one for each of those personalities chosen by the author at his whim. This book, while fun and interesting, should be read as whimsical rather than authoritative. My rating: 6/10, finished 2/20/14.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now a bit dated, this nevertheless is a great little compendium of mini-biographies of cultural and artistic icons of the 20th century. Spiced with Park's trenchant opinions, it covers all those French intellectuals, avant-garde filmmakers and abstraction expressionists you had barely heard of or knew only by name. And you can dip into and out of it at will.